Saying 17 - Jesus Will Bestow What Has Not Been Perceived

Nag Hammadi Coptic Text

BLATZ (17) Jesus said: I will give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has not entered into the heart of man.

LAYTON (17) Jesus said, "I shall give you (plur.) what eyes have not seen, what ears have not heard, what hands have not touched, what has not come upon the human heart."

DORESSE 18 [17]. Jesus says: "I will give you what eye has never seen, and what ear has never heard, and what hand has never touched, and what has never entered into the heart of man."

 

Funk's Parallels

Isa 64:4
For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.

Luke 10:23-24
And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see: For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

Matt 13:16-17
But blessed are your eyes, for they see: and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, That many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

1 Cor 2:9
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.

1 Clem 34:8
For He saith, Eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard, and it hath not entered into the heart of man what great things He hath prepared for them that patiently await Him.

2 Clem 11:7
If therefore we shalt have wrought righteousness in the sight of God, we shalt enter into His kingdom and shall receive the promises which ear hath not heard nor eye seen, nor eye seen, neither hath it entered into the heart of man.

Turfan Fragment M 789
"I will give you what you have not seen with your eyes, nor heard with your ears, nor grasped with your hand."

Acts of Peter 39
Now whereas thou hast made known and revealed these things unto me, O word of life, called now by me wood (or, word called now by me the tree of life), I give thee thanks, not with these lips that are nailed unto the cross, nor with this tongue by which truth and falsehood issue forth, nor with this word which cometh forth by means of art whose nature is material, but with that voice do I give thee thanks, O King, which is perceived (understood) in silence, which is not heard openly, which proceedeth not forth by organs of the body, which goeth not into ears of flesh, which is not heard of corruptible substance, which existeth not in the world, neither is sent forth upon earth, nor written in books, which is owned by one and not by another: but with this, O Jesu Christ, do I give thee thanks, with the silence of a voice, wherewith the spirit that is in me loveth thee, speaketh unto thee, seeth thee, and beseecheth thee. Thou art perceived of the spirit only, thou art unto me father, thou my mother, thou my brother, thou my friend, thou my bondsman, thou my steward: thou art the All and the All is in thee: and thou Art, and there is nought else that is save thee only. Unto him therefore do ye also, brethren, flee, and if ye learn that in him alone ye exist, ye shall obtain those things whereof he saith unto you: "which neither eye hath seen nor ear heard, neither have they entered into the heart of man." We ask, therefore, for that which thou hast promised to give unto us, O thou undefiled Jesu. We praise thee, we give thee thanks, and confess to thee, glorifying thee, even we men that are yet without strength, for thou art God alone, and none other: to whom be glory now and unto all ages. Amen.

DialSav 57
The [Lord] said, "[You have] asked me about a saying [...] which eye has not seen, [nor] have I heard it except from you. But I say to you that when what invigorates a man is removed, he will be called dead. And when what is alive leaves what is dead, what is alive will be called upon."

The Prayer of the Apostle Paul 25-29
Grant what no angel eye has [seen] and no archon ear (has) heard and what has not entered into the human heart.

 

Scholarly Quotes

Funk quotes Turfan Fragment M 789 as follows:

"'I will give you what you have not seen with your eyes, nor heard with your ears, nor grasped with your hand.' (Hennecke 1:300)"

(New Gospel Parallels, v. 2, p. 119)

Marvin Meyer writes:

"This saying is also cited in 1 Corinthians 2:9, perhaps as a wisdom saying in use among the enthusiasts of Corinthians. Compare Isaiah 64:4. The saying occurs frequently in Jewish and Christian literature, and sometimes it is said to come from the Apocalypse of Elijah or the Secrets (or, apocrypha) of Elijah. At other times it is said to be a saying of Jesus. A variant of the saying is also found in Plutarch, How the Young Person Should Study Poetry 17E: 'And let these (words) of Empedocles be at hand: "Thus these things are not to be seen by men, nor heard, nor comprehended with the mind." . . .' The parallels have been collected by Michael E. Stone and John Strugnell, The Books of Elijah: Parts 1-2, pp. 41-73."

(The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, p. 76)

Robert M. Grant and David Noel Freedman write:

"The apostle Paul quotes something very close to this saying, perhaps from a lost document, in 1 Corinthians 2:9: 'As it is written, What eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and what has not entered into the heart of man, such things God has prepared for those who love him.' By the end of the second century these words were ascribed to Jesus, as in the Martyrdom of Peter (chapter 10) and the Acts of Peter with Simon (chapter 39). Thomas adds a unique reference to the sense of touch. The joys of the kingdom are completely unrelated to sense perception. (We should add that, like other Gnostics, he undoubtedly rejected the accounts in the gospels which speak of Jesus's risen body as tangible - Luke 24:39; John 20:27). His phrasing of this saying is the exact reverse of 1 John 1:1, which speaks of 'What we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled."

(The Secret Sayings of Jesus, p. 137)

R. McL. Wilson writes:

"As Jeremias observes, a considerable number of the Agrapha arise from the erroneous attribution to Jesus of sayings which actually belong to others. An example, indeed, occurs in the New Testament itself, since the words ascribed to John the Baptist in the Gospels (Matt. iii. 11 and par.) are in Acts (i. 5, xi. 16) attributed to Jesus. For logion 17 the New Testament parallel is 1 Corinthians ii. 9, where Paul introduces these words by the formula 'as it is written.' This has long presented a problem, since the saying is not an exact quotation of any Old Testament text (the nearest is Isa. lxiv. 3-4, but not in LXX). It is not, of course, impossible that Paul is quoting a saying of Jesus, but in that case we should have expected him to indicate the fact, as in other passages (e.g. 1 Cor. vii. 10, ix. 14, 1 Thess. iv. 15 ff.); moreover, the introductory formula suggests a written source, and would be quite unusual in a reference to tradition. On the whole, therefore, we should probably see in logion 17 a Pauline saying growing into a word of Jesus. As Puech and others have noted, the saying is attributed to Jesus also in the Acts of Peter (39). P. Prigent has drawn attention to a series of quotations of this text, some of them apparently independent of Paul, in various early Christian sources, and suggests that it may go back ultimately to the liturgy of the synagogue."

(Studies in the Gospel of Thomas, pp. 102-103)

F. F. Bruce writes:

"This saying has no parallel in the canonical Gospels, but it is very similar to the quotation in 1 Corinthians 2.9 which Paul introduces by 'as itis written' - a clause which normally indicates an Old Testament source. Here, however, we have no Old Testament quotation (the resemblance to Isaiah 64.4 is superficial); according to Origen and others it is a quotation from the Secrets (or Apocalypse) of Elijah. [Origen, Commentary on Matthew 27.9; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah 64.4; Ambrosiaster, Commentary on 1 Corinthians 2.9.] Like the Gospel of Thomas, the second-century work called the Acts of Peter ascribes the saying to Jesus. [Acts of Peter 39.] In its present context it perhaps belongs to a Naassene formula of initiation. Whereas Paul quotes the words with reference to the hidden wisdom which his Corinthian converts are unable to grasp because of their spiritual immaturity and lack of brotherly love, here they are probably intende to recommend that kind of 'knowledge' on which the Corinthians, in Paul's judgment, concentrated too much. It has also been suggested that they were used by Gnostics as a counterblast to the anti-Gnostic claim in 1 John 1.1 to bear witness only to that 'which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands'. (The clause 'what hand never touched', unparalleled in 1 Corinthians 2.9, may echo 1 John 1.1.)"

(Jesus and Christian Origins Outside the New Testament, p. 120-121)

John S. Kloppenborg, Marvin W. Meyer, Stephen J. Patterson, and Michael G. Steinhauser state:

"In view of the fact that Paul in this letter is struggling against the kind of esotericism promoted by this saying, it is not likely that he has quoted it here simply because he liked it. Rather, he must have drawn it from the repertoire of his opponents, only to fill it with new content amenable to his version of the gospel. According to Paul, that which has been revealed is not the knowledge (GNWSIS) that has 'puffed up' the 'wise' in Corinth, but the crucifixion, the 'word of the cross' as Paul himself puts it (1:18). Paul in a sense co-opts the methods of his opponents in order to correct their message."

(Q-Thomas Reader, p. 113)

Stevan Davies writes:

"That which previously was unseen, unheard, untouched, unthought is now available, according to sayings 18 and 19, for it is the end that is the beginning. A person who takes his place in the beginning will know the end and not experience death; thus the beginning is a state of being that can be comprehended in the present. Heretofore hidden, the beginning now is revealed (sayings 5, 6, 108). Thomas's saying 17 refers to the kingdom of God in the physical world, a visible, audible, tangible, experienced reality (sayings 3, 51, 113). When Paul quotes a scripture paralleled in saying 17 (1 Cor 2:7-9), he too understands that what is now revealed has existed from the beginning: 'a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.' Similarly, when 1 John 1:2 alludes to what evidently is saying 17, or Paul's scripture, what has happened in the present is associated with the beginning: 'That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life....'"

(http://www.misericordia.edu/users/davies/thomas/jblprot.htm)

 

Visitor Comments

He could have hardly been more clear in claiming that he was making revolutionary statements about God and Ultimate Reality.
- active-mystic

Jesus said: I will give you what no eye has seen (the gospel of Jesus, which your eye has not seen, although it is before you) and what no ear has heard (my special message to you, which you will hear when you know that this is my gospel) and what no hand has touched (the gospel of the founder of your religion, which your hand will touch when you know that this is my gospel) and what has not entered into the heart of man (me-Jesus-who is already in your heart, as you will understand when you know that this is my gospel and use this knowledge to find and enter the Kingdom of God).
- Simon Magus

Maybe the gift is only something like "meaning" or "direction". Because he is the only one able to provide this, it has not been seen, heard, touched or felt yet by man. This also would implicate that it is not something of an "object" but something found through him (if you choose to accept it).
- ajee

A technical injunction. He will give higher knowledge. This cannot be seen by eye, heard by ear, etc, an organ of higher perception has first to be created. It will not be preceived by the heart [or head, mind, intellect] of the unregenerate person. First learn how to learn!
- Thief37

What has not been seen by an eye? What has not an ear heard? What has not been touched by a hand? What is not in the heart of man? The true self, which may be experienced but not by the five senses of man and is not confounded to the cardiac muscle.
- Maitreya